Billed as an epic motion picture event, it really does look like HBO Films pulled out all the stops for their upcoming movie Hemingway & Gellhorn. Starring Academy Award nominee Clive Owen and Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman in the two titular roles (Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn), the made for television movie follows the famous romance between the writers. Their marriage was as passionate and tumultuous as the conflicts they covered with their relationship lasting nine years from the Spanish Civil War through World War II.
The teaser does a pretty decent job of showcasing the two movie star leads as well as the expansive settings yet I couldn't help but feel like a tease is not the right way to showcase an epic. About a month past, a five minute trailer for the series briefly appeared online and it was obviously way more in-depth in its preview, something that I feel is necessary to get the word out on how ambitious this project really seems. There were a lot of interesting stylistic shifts and choices made in this HBO movie that didn't make the 57 second cut here not to mention a large ensemble of award winning actors.
However, the tease does stress one of the biggest selling points for Hemingway & Gellhorn - the fact that it is directed by Philip Kaufman. This is exciting news not only because Kaufman is an Academy Award nominee but mostly because he's the man behind a similar epic tale, The Right Stuff, brilliantly adapted from Tom Wolfe's non-fiction novel of the same name. Oh, and it's also edited by three time Academy Award winner and legend Walter Murch. However, I can't say I envy Clive Owen having to portray the famous author after Corey Stoll's great deadpan turn as Hemingway in Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris but we'll soon see how he stacks up.
Hemingway & Gellhorn premieres Monday, May 28 on HBO. It stars Nicole Kidman, Clive Owen, Robert Duvall, David Strathairn, Peter Coyote and Molly Parker. It was directed by Philip Kaufman.
Official synopsis via
[[ href http hemingway-and-gellhorn index.html movies www.hbo.com ]] HBO's website,
[[ href http hemingway-and-gellhorn index.html movies www.hbo.com ]] Hemingway & Gellhorn recounts one of the greatest romances of the last century – the passionate love affair and tumultuous marriage of literary master Ernest Hemingway and the beautiful, trailblazing war correspondent Martha Gellhorn - as it follows the adventurous writers through the Spanish Civil War and beyond. As witnesses to history, they covered all the great conflicts of their time; but the war they couldn’t survive was the war between themselves.
